Totem Talk: 4.0.6 restoration shaman study guide
by Joe Perez 
Feb 8th 2011 at 7:00PM
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how.
Last week, we talked about healing my favorite 5-man instance, The Vortex Pinnacle. Before continuing on with our series on healing Cataclysm dungeons and heroics, I thought we would take this week to talk about the incoming set of changes heading our way when patch 4.0.6 goes live, since it has grown and changed quite a bit since it was first announced.
The patch has been highly anticipated since it was first mentioned. These changes will have an impact on our spell choices, our ability to keep up with other healers in raids, and in truth should help begin balancing everything out. It will have an impact on our healing spell choices in many fights, our healing styles, and to a lesser degree, our trinkets and enchants. Let's take a look, shall we?
Last week, we talked about healing my favorite 5-man instance, The Vortex Pinnacle. Before continuing on with our series on healing Cataclysm dungeons and heroics, I thought we would take this week to talk about the incoming set of changes heading our way when patch 4.0.6 goes live, since it has grown and changed quite a bit since it was first announced.
The patch has been highly anticipated since it was first mentioned. These changes will have an impact on our spell choices, our ability to keep up with other healers in raids, and in truth should help begin balancing everything out. It will have an impact on our healing spell choices in many fights, our healing styles, and to a lesser degree, our trinkets and enchants. Let's take a look, shall we?
Patch notes and changes and healing, oh my!
So I think we should start by consolidating all of the changes that are coming in a nice, tidy box.
Shaman
- Chain Heal's effectiveness has been increased by approximately 10%
- Healing Rain now has a 40-yard range, up from 30, to be consistent with other shaman heals.
- Spiritwalker's Grace duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 10
- Cleansing Waters no longer fires its heal effect twice when a shaman removes a Magic and a Curse debuff with a single cast.
- Deep Healing (Mastery) has been increased to 3% per point, up from 2.5%.
- Greater Healing Wave mana cost has been increased by 10%; healing done has been increased by 20%.
- Mana Tide Totem has been redesigned. The totem no longer multiplies the Spirit of those affected by it. It instead gives a flat amount of Spirit equal to 400% of the casting shaman's Spirit, exclusive of short-term Spirit buffs affecting the shaman when the totem is dropped. In addition, its effects are now raid-wide.
- Reincarnation can now correctly be used after Soulstone Resurrection or Rebirth has already been used on the shaman during a boss encounter
That's the complete list of all changes we can look forward to in the upcoming patch. Quite a bit to digest there, so let's break it down into some nice, easy-to-digest tidbits.
Dust off Chain Heal and Greater Healing Wave
Two of our spells are getting a little bit of tweak, and it is a tweak that we needed. I talked a little bit about this last week on World of Matticus, but we've had a little bit of a problem in the department of our spells. Chain Heal was getting pushed aside for other heals like Healing Surge. It was sadly falling slightly short when compared to other AoE healing as compared to other heals like Prayer of Healing. The 10% increase should help make positive steps towards re-establishing Chain Heal's place in our healing toolkit. On the PTR, the spell is really started to fill in as a niche tool -- no longer the spammable spell of the Burning Crusade days, but far from useless. Comparing the healing throughput to the other healers, it really seems to have found its place. Get ready to make use of it once again, as there are many places in 5-mans and raids where it really comes in handy.
Just like Chain Heal, Greater Healing Wave has been pretty much unused. The reason for this is that Healing Surge was healing for pretty close to the same amount as GHW, while costing almost the same mana. With the tweak, though, GHW is really becoming that dig-deep heal it was originally intended to be. The increased cost of the spell is negligible compared to what it heals now, and it really is a specialized tool like it should be.
Mastery, Healing Rain and Spiritwalker's Grace
Our mastery has been pretty lackluster, all things considered. The big problem with this is that Deep Healing only kicks in when a target is at low health totals. So, the lower the health totals, the more our direct healing healed for. This means it doesn't do a whole lot for us most of the time, because as healers, our job is to keep people from riding that dangerous line of death. The change from mastery's granting 3% per point instead of 2.5% sounds minuscule, but really counts in those situations where we have a lot of people at low health totals and every single heal counts. This works really well now with those emergency GHWes and will go that much further in progression raid healing, where health totals are naturally going to be lower.
Healing Rain is also getting a minor tweak, but one that will help out a little bit. Right now, all of our healing spells come with a 40-yard range. Problem is that pre-patch 4.0.6, it only has a range of 30 yards, meaning that in many cases you have to move to set the spell optimally. This extra 10-yard range helps keep you stationary a few more precious seconds and helps make your healing throughput a little better.
On the topic of movement, Spiritwalker's Grace is getting a few more seconds to let you move and heal. While 5 seconds may not seem like much, it helps in those situations where you have to use it. Also, since any spell you're casting gets cut off if you're moving when SwG ends, it gives you a few extra moments to plant yourself before losing the cast.
Mana Tide Totem and trinkets
This has been one of the biggest concerns about the patch so far. Mana Tide Totem will now grant us a 400% spirit boost, up from 350% while active, and will now affect the entire raid group. While this seems like quite a boost, the downside is that procs from trinkets or abilities no longer count towards the spirit total increased. This means that Heartsong Enchant, the tier 11 four-piece bonus and trinkets like the Core of Ripeness no longer count. It also only grants 400% of the casting shaman's spirit total to the raid group, not the individuals healers. The change means that you will want to use MTT early and often. If you can use it early enough in a boss fight to top off your mana totals that you can use it again 3 minutes later, it will go a long way toward helping keep your mana totals high.
Don't abandon those spirit trinkets, either. Keep in mind that those trinkets still increase our overall spirit, which when combined with Meditation, keeps our mana regen going strong. Darkmoon Card: Tsunami, Tear of Blood and Core of Ripeness are still very effective pieces to have on you. Just make sure that you are using any on-use trinkets whenever they are up.
Compared to other healers, our changes are pretty good. After extensive testing on the PTR, our healing numbers are not very far below that of paladins and priests. This has been a great concern for a while now, and it seems that things are starting to normalize. While there are still some things that could potentially use a little bit of a tweak, we're not in a bad spot. Our throughput has gone up, and our tools are starting to fill their roles as they are supposed to. There are distinct choices between spells in boss fights now, and mastery isn't quite the write-off it was before -- at least, not for heroic mode and progression fights.
Totem Talk: Restoration will show you the basics of endgame resto shaman play as well as how to find the expansion's best reputation gear for resto shaman and tips for easier leveling. Happy healing, and may your mana be plentiful!Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jeremy Feb 8th 2011 7:11PM
An important note: the spirit from Tsunami and Jar both contribute toward MTT on live. There was speculation about it working on the PTR, but it's been confirmed that made it's way to live as well. Now I just need the jar to stop avoiding my loot tables.
MortalCoil Feb 10th 2011 12:31AM
I think a lot of shaman are still in the WOTLK stag where u could just spam healing surge and win. This changes mean that healing surge wont see as much use and i think this will really diversify shaman healing (basically using chian heal healing wave and GHW a lot more). Obviously our numbers arent as high as we would like them but we are still effective healers! Never fear!
Moosepie Feb 8th 2011 7:24PM
also....WATER EFFECTS for our healing spells!
MusedMoose Feb 8th 2011 7:34PM
THIS. ELEVENTY-ONE THOUSAND AND FORTY-TWO TIMES THIS.
...seriously, I'm way too happy about the change. Eh heh heh.
Odin Feb 9th 2011 4:23AM
Agreed, the animations are quite perty.
Firestyle Feb 9th 2011 9:13AM
Yes and no. While healing surge may have a new effect, the ancestral awakening proc off of it is still leafy green. Likewise with riptide. I certainly hope they finish what they started here.
Jackwraith Feb 8th 2011 7:32PM
But still no cooldowns to save people in imminent danger other than NS every 2 minutes. Given the paucity of effect of many of our heals, that pales in comparison to the arsenal of tank-saving methods that paladins (especially), priests, and druids carry around. When a Ret pallie has 4 or 5 ways to save a tank on the verge of death and I have virtually none, you'd think that would be a pretty huge red flag to GC and the gang, especially considering that the damage/healing environment of Cataclysm isn't quite as distant from Wrath as stated or hoped for (e.g. people can still die mighty quickly in heroics and raids.)
Sky Feb 8th 2011 7:57PM
Yea, I think we are in need of at least 1 (maybe 2) more cooldowns. Something similar to Avenging Wrath would be great. NS is good and all but most of the time it's not quite enough
Grak Feb 9th 2011 5:34AM
What are the "4 - 5 ways a Ret pally can save a tank" ? I can only think of Lay on Hands, and possibly Hand of Sacrifice, which is more an external cooldown but I suppose could give a healer time to land a big heal.
Yomamma Feb 9th 2011 9:11AM
But to make up for not having tank or group saving cool-downs, we bring the uniqueness of our buff giving totems...oh wait, everyone else has a better buff that overwrites ours. Well, then there is our staple Bloodlust...damn..2 other classes have that too. But there is always our........umm.... I'll have to get back to you on that one lol
Navigator_Black Feb 9th 2011 11:28AM
I completely agree with Jackwraith, the lack of a useful CD is very detrimental to us. A Ret Paladin that's on the ball can save a person more effectively than a Resto Shaman and that is simply bad design right there.
A lot of people are tending to reference Paladins when talking about Resto Shaman and I don't think that's simply because it's a trend, but because there's a real issue at hand. Paladins excel at every role they have access to, yet Shaman are heavily sub par by comparison. It seems that Paladins are exempt from the Hybrid Tax and Shaman are paying it in full with criminal interest rates.
Sky Feb 9th 2011 11:33AM
Paladin Cooldowns:
Avenging Wrath
Divine Favor
Guardian of Ancient Kings
Lay on Hands
Hand of Sacrifice
Divine Plea (mana regen only)
Shaman Cooldowns:
Nature's Swiftness
Mana Tide Totem (awesome idea cause shamans stack spirit and not haste)
Need I say more?
ljrk99 Feb 10th 2011 5:39PM
You forgot one shaman cool down, Reincarnation.
Lets see a pally come back from death, eh? Well i guess they all can just bubble, so i suppose those 2 cd's offset, huh. I'd rather not have the repair bill tho
MusedMoose Feb 8th 2011 7:34PM
Still loving my shaman healer. Thanks for the great summing-up of the changes.
Kaiyaa Feb 8th 2011 8:23PM
Im not entirely sure if its a bug or working as intended... but currently mana tide totem is taking the spirit from heartsong and jar into account. Before heartsong and jar active: 9784 spirit. with just heartsong active *took jar off to test it*: 10584 spirit. with heartsong and jar active: 12644 spirit. Now take it, im not complaining if it is working as intended, but as of right now, i gain back about 50% of my mana while not casting, about 25% while casting.
Necromann Feb 8th 2011 9:04PM
Is 4.0.6 5.5 gigs or did my comp not fully reinstall wow on Sunday?
mdumoulin.home Feb 8th 2011 9:25PM
it's about 150 MB, a bit less even, but not by much.
Necromann Feb 8th 2011 10:42PM
Ok thx, i had to put wow back on to my laptop. It finished Sunday. When I started up wow today at about 9 PM, it said 5.5 gigs. Is this patches since 4.0 or something?
Stardusted Feb 8th 2011 9:40PM
I'm surprised the tremor totem change didn't make it in your list of changes. I'm not used to the new mechanic yet after a few random BGs, but I'm not a big fan so far.
For resto shaman who pvp or who are used to putting it down and leaving it there for specific boss/trash encounters, this change will take some getting used to.
Sky Feb 8th 2011 11:16PM
I think Blizz should completely rework the Mastery for shamans. The mastery bonus for Discipline, Holy (priest) and Holy (Paladin) is always active and the mastery for Resto Druids should almost always be active. However, the mastery for resto shaman is only good when targets are at low health therefore it isn't always there.
If Blizz hasn't noticed by now healers don't like uncertainty. We like a sure thing. We like something that will always be there. We don't want something that will make us awesome half the time and completely impotent the other half of the time. We want consistency so PLEASE just make our mastery a flat bonus to healing, reduced spell costs, extra heal over time, or absorb. Anything THAT WILL ALWAYS BE THERE would really go a long way to fix the mess that is the Resto Shaman